


Do You Still Love Me?

by simplysirius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Relationship(s), Remus x Sirius, sirius x remus, wolfstar, wolfstar angst, wolfstar fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:27:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplysirius/pseuds/simplysirius
Summary: Twelve years is unbearably long, but even after Sirius and Remus finally reunite, the question remains: did their love survive Azkaban? For Remus, there’s only ever been one answer.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 63





	Do You Still Love Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for daily fics and fan art! I also take requests :)

“Here. Chamomile is still your favorite, right?”

“I don’t know. I think so,” Sirius said, accepting the steaming cup of tea from Remus. He stared into the liquid without drinking it. “You used to make this for me all the time. Every night before bed.”

“To help you sleep,” Remus nodded, silently hoping that it would do the same thing now, their first night back as 12 Grimmauld Place. The other Order members had already trudged to bed, but Sirius was restless. “Remember when you tried to make it once? And it tasted like dirty water?”

Sirius frowned, his sadness radiating towards Remus sitting in the armchair opposite the sofa. “Not really. It’s…blurry.”

Remus wished he hadn’t asked. He had yet to figure out how to navigate this new life, where Sirius was in front of him, a grown man, but never really there at all, vacant stares and watchful eyes too jarring and harsh to belong to him.

“Do you still love me?” Sirius asked suddenly, his jaw set tight and his muscles rigid, rapidly turning to stone at the thought of never waking up beside Remus again, never holding his hand during thunder storms, never kissing him goodnight.

Remus set down his cup of tea on the table, slowly approaching Sirius, so as not to scare him, and sat beside him on the couch. Gingerly taking his face between his hands, Remus’ thumb rubbed a stray tear from Sirius’ cheek. “I never stopped.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

Sirius swallowed, eyes flickering to the jagged scars careening across his arms and poking out from underneath the collar of his shirt. The marks of Azkaban, wicked and ruthless, a permanent reminder that twelve years of his life were stolen, never to be recovered. “Even when you thought I…betrayed them? Betrayed you?”

“I never thought you betrayed them,” Remus insisted. “Not for a single second. When I heard what happened, I tried to convince Dumbledore to let me fight for you during a trial but…”

“But people who help Voldemort murder the best wizards of our time aren’t allowed a trial,” Sirius finished bitterly. His face softened as Remus brushed the hair away from his face, tucking wandering strands behind his ear. “The whole time I was in there, I thought of you. Only you.”

Remus smiled though his eyes were somber as he pictured Sirius withering away on the cold concrete floor of his cell, no one but the imposing shadows of the dementors and echoing, torturous screams to keep him company.

“Why didn’t you try harder?”

Remus blinked, hardly recognizing the glacial chill tearing through Sirius’ voice, all traces of tender love and kindness vaporized from his face. In its stead, dark circles blackened his eyes and the hard lines of his cheek bones threw dark shadows over his taut lips.

“What?”

Sirius fell away from Remus’ touch, scrambling to his feet as he paced the length of the room. “Why didn’t you try harder to get me out of there? If you knew I was innocent, why didn’t you fight for me?”

Remus shook his head. “No one would listen. And-and Dumbledore said that if I took your side, people would think I was with Voldemort, too and...I tried, you have to believe me–”

“I would have fought for you!” Sirius shouted, his voice vibrating the windows and echoing in the quiet house. The other Order members would hear them, Remus knew, but Sirius didn’t seem to care. “I would have never stopped fighting to get you back if they threw you in there!”

“I know,” Remus nodded, reaching for Sirius, who only flinched as he came closer. “I know you would have, but please, you have to understand–”

“If you really loved me, you would have saved me.”

Each word drove a knife through Remus’ chest, piercing his heart and stealing the oxygen from his lungs. Before he could stop it, angry tears blurred his vision and clung to his long lashes. “I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life, Sirius.”

One moment, Sirius was on the war path, hands instinctively reaching for a wand he didn’t have, eyes searching for a target to channel his fury. The next, the strength left his body and his armor fell, revealing the shell of a man not quite sure how he ended up on the far side of the room, so far away from his tea cup that had since lost its hot steam. Realization fell heavily onto his shoulders, crippling his body.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius gasped, stumbling backwards, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I don’t know what…sometimes it just…it gets loud and I feel so angry and I can’t…I’m sorry.”

The tears fell in waves as Sirius sank to the floor, leaning into Remus’ chest as he was taken into his arms. Remus held him tightly, let him wail into his sweater and wrinkle the fabric with white-knuckled fists, gently rocking him back and forth.

“It was awful,” Sirius cried, his shoulders trembling as he choked on another sob. “Every day they…I…you weren’t there to make it okay. I needed you to make it okay, Remus.”

“I’m here now,” Remus assured, “I’m here and I’ll make everything okay again. I promise. Everything will be okay. Let’s just…go to bed, yeah? Let’s get some rest.”

Sirius let Remus help him off the floor and carefully guide him towards his bedroom, still frozen in time from years spent defying his mother and desecrating the Black family name. His band posters were peeling from the walls and clothes still lay half-out of the closet; memories from a different life that no longer belonged to Sirius.

Tugging Remus into the bed with him, the two men crammed together on the small mattress, neither with much space to move, neither wanting to be alone.

“Hold me like you used to?” Sirius asked quietly, and Remus only nodded in the darkness, pulling him closer and draping his arms in a protective cage over his body.

Things fit differently now, a painful reminder that they were no longer sharing a bed in the safety of Hogwarts, the room decorated in the finest crimsons and golds, where their biggest worry was winning the House Cup. Sirius’ shoulders were slender and boney, pressing sharply into Remus’ chest. His frail fingers were always trembling, even as his eyes slipped closed. His lips were brittle and chapped, bitten and bleeding, no longer soft and plump.

But Remus held him the entire night, calming him when he woke with nightmares, his skin slick with sweat, and gently welcoming him to the dawn of a new day. Sirius watched the sun rise outside the window curiously, quietly blinking at the way Remus bathed in the pale daylight.

“I still love you, Moony.”

“I still love you, Pads.”


End file.
